caring what those they may never see or
hear of again, think of something they have made or done. Nothing good
or useful, I mean, but some folly or other. It's what makes people
carve their names on the top of a rock, or some out-of-the-way place,
that somebody else, about as wise as themselves, may know that they have
been there."

It was the work of two or three minutes only to pull the raft to pieces,
and to send the bundles of reeds which composed it floating down the
stream. Before leaving the river, we sat down and took the meal which
we called our dinner; and having drunk as much water as we required, we
filled up the skin Ned had provided, as we could not tell when we might
again meet with water. Very fortunate it was that we did so. Having
packed up our traps, we trudged onwards.

We had walked about a couple of miles over a country thinly sprinkled
with trees, and naturally fertile, though now without a human
habitation, when, on looking ahead, instead of the green colour of the
grass, and the varied foliage of the trees, we observed, as far as the
eye could reach, one unvaried mass of reddish brown.

"That's a wild heath ahead of us, which we shall have to pass," observed
Ned. "I never saw the like of it."

"See, see," exclaimed Pedro, pointing rather more to the right than we
had been looking. "What is that?"

At first we could not guess what was happening. It appeared as if at a
little distance off there was a heavy snow-storm falling, the whole air
being full of large white flakes, so dense as almost to conceal the
fierce rays of the sun.

"No, it can't be snow--that's certain," said Ned. "But what it is, I
can't say."

The seeming snow-drift swept on as we advanced towards the brown heath.
Pedro ran on a little ahead, and stooping down, soon returned with a
large insect in his hand, which I recognised as a locust. It was fully
three inches in length, of a reddish brown colour, and with very long
and powerful hind-legs, with which, when Pedro opened his hand, it
sprung off to a great distance. The appearance we had seen was that of
a flight of locusts, or rather a small division of their army, which was
about to settle directly in our course.

We were soon among their outposts, where they lay pretty thick; but
beyond, as far as we could see, the ground was completely covered with
them. Pedro, who had often seen them before, declared that, like ants
and bees, they have peculiar laws a